Cantari's Guide for Beginning Spellcasters In Asheron's Call Updated Feb-2001! Taken from the Internet Decided to take up the wand and forsake the sword? Wonderful! But the young adventurer can use a few tips to survive as a frail, yet potent, spellcaster. The most important decision you'll face is "What are all the starting skills for my character, and which should I take later?" The answer depends on what role you plan on filling, and what you want your mage to eventually be. If you're planning on being a support mage you'll definitely need Life Magic, and usually Creature and Item Magic. Support mages are a great welcome to any fellowship, but you don't get the advantage of being able to solo adventure very easily. If you are more a pyromaniacal kind of spellcaster, War Magic is for you. This is also helpful for solo players, and the most mana- efficient way to do damage to most monsters. Most often, Life Magic and one of the enchanter schools are added at creation. You must take mana conversion. This is not an optional skill for a pure mage -- it's a necessity. Although touted as a "support" school, Life magic has some of the most devastating and effective spells, and has many mana-regenerating spells to keep you in the action longer. Nearly all mages, and even many hybrid warriors, take Life magic. All true mages will eventually want all four schools of magic. Training all four schools plus mana conversion, and having no skills specialized is possible, but is a severe tradeoff between utility and power. Specialization is good (resulting in a noticable bonus at higher levels), but very expensive for magic schools. Specialize as many magic skills as possible, usually Life, War, or Creature Magic. You can train other skills as you advance (you get one skill point per level in the early levels), but you can never specialize in something else once your character is created. Plan your skills by taking into account future points you will receive. Skill points, for training new skills, are received every level to 10th, then every even level to 20th, then 23 26 29 32, and then 35 40 45 .... At a minimum, take into account all the skill points you will have at level 26, and how they will be spent. Most often, mages fall into one of 3 catagories: No specialization geared toward obtaining Melee Defense, Life specialized (sometimes with creature specialized) geared toward attacking the high-level creatures, or Mana Conversion specialized often with another school of magic or cheap skills. Plan your skills based on the skillpoints you will receive: you can specialize something and train Item Magic at 9th level, for instance. Point distribution When distributing your points, keep the long run in mind. When you're 35th level, what do you want your statistics to look like? Set each of your starting statistics to a similar proportion of the eventual goal. The reason is simple mathematics: you may spend experience points (XP) to raise statistics, but each successive increase costs more in XP. It's MUCH cheaper to raise two separate statistics 10 points each, than a single statistic 20 points! Therefore, start with ALL of the values lower than you plan on eventually making them, as it'll make it easier to attain the very high ones. The other consideration is you're going to need a high Focus and Self at high level, so make sure those start at 100. No exceptions: start them at 100 or you will regret it at higher levels. Alternatively, you probably won't need much Coordination, depending on your secondary skills. The most common starting Coordination for advanced mage players is 10. If you plan on adventuring solo, you will need to run away quite a lot early on. Although Quickness is not one of the stats that will cost a lot at high level, it's very difficult to start out with a low Quickness. A good value is probably 35 for a new mage, higher if you haven't played AC (around 45). Advanced players usually start 10 or 20. A minimum Strength is about 35 in order to carry your spell components but higher is better. Very likely, you will want to wear armor until you can cast high enough spells on a robe to make it worthwhile protection. Armor will require a high strength. You will have trouble carrying your components with a 25 strength, and will always worry about burden. A 50 strength is much better, usually at the expense of quickness and endurance. Melee defense is a wonderful and expensive skill to have, too. Unfortunately, it conflicts with the physical stats of a magic user, requiring coordination and quickness. If you take (or plan to take) melee defense but are not planning on using a weapon, you should still start out your coord low, and compensate with quickness. Never compromise Focus or Self. Relative importance of stats for straight mages: Strength: med to high Endurance: med to high Coordination: min to low Quickness: min to med Focus: max Self: max Skills to consider specializing: Mana Conversion, Life Magic, Creature Magic, War Magic, Arcane Lore Dealing with the interface Once you create your new spellcaster, you need to get used to the interface. Enter the training dungeon through the swirling portal next to you. Wield your wand, and go into combat mode. Make sure all of your spells are accessible in the horizontal spell menu by dragging from your spellbook. You'll become comfortable with the somewhat tedious interface sooner than you can imagine. Memorize the "target player" and "target monster" sets of keys. If you EVER find yourself hunting for a key, make a comfortable keymap as soon as possible. That's why keymappings exist. You may want to have a separate "fighter" keymap and "spellcaster" keymap. The spell tabs offer "sections" for different spells. Some people use different tabs for the different levels of spells, but this is not appropriate for a fighting mage. Speed is of the essence, and clicking on tabs for different level spells is not a good method. Set up your first (and perhaps second) tabs for combat, duplicating important and emergency spells on the numbered hotkeys. That way, no matter what tab you're on, you can cast your heal self/other or stamina-to-mana with a hotkey. The ultimate test is in combat, and if you're fast enough and used to your interface, that is the best one. Casting for Fun and Profit Remember that you should always have extra components for critical spells. You can usually get by at first with a couple scarabs and talismans, but you should have several powders, potions, and herbs of the appropriate variety on hand. Look in your spellbook to see what components are required and consider them your weapon. You are powerless without the appropriate components. You will need to determine what spells affect which monsters the best. Each monster type will have a different set of weaknesses (e.g.: cold is best on shreths, but bludgeoning works very well). When you cast a single spell, your power to cast that spell depletes and builds back up over a short time. To get the most out of your war spells, alternate through those effective spells using the hotkeys (or mouse). This gives your spells some "resting time" to build back up. You must do some spell research to get more spells to exploit the weaknesses of the monsters. Likewise, use vulnerability spells on monsters to help the effectiveness of your cohorts and your own spells. Beginning Spell Research Try to research your basic level 1 spells quickly. This requires some cash, but cash is devalued and easily obtained. In fact, many players will drop excess spare change in shops. Begging cash is frowned on in many towns, and will often get you insulted or shunned. If you don't have many pyreals, don't bother trying to research higher level spells, as the component burn will bust you. When you have about a 70 in war magic, you should be casting level 2s. You can get away with a 40 or so in the other magics for level 2s. The reason is that it's usually a lot more deadly to fizzle a war spell (in combat), than an armor spell (out of combat). Component burn is also increased significantly when you fizzle. Before doing any research, learn the magic language. You can do this by placing a SINGLE component in the Create Spell window, and click "test" in combat mode. You will speak a word when you test a component, and you will make a specific motion when you test a talisman. Learning all of these words and motions will give you hints on the components that other spellcasters are using. When you see someone cast a Whirling Blade or Harm Other spell, they will speak an exact phrase and make an exact motion. Listen and watch and read, and try to duplicate it by setting components in the test window. Note the formulas of existing spells you know, as other spells will follow a similar format (scarab, herb, powder, potion, talisman). You MUST have the appropriate magic skill and an appropriate target selected (yourself, another, or an item) each time you test a new recipe or it will fizzle even if it's a correct formula. You also need enough mana to cast the spell. If your mana suddenly drops to zero when testing, you happened upon the right formula but didn't have enough mana for it. Always set your target before clicking "test"! There are spoilers all over the Internet about spells and research. This document has none. Remember that the thrill of discovery is lost when using spoilers, but at some point, spell research becomes tedious. - o -